Bringing the World to your Kitchen

Red Palm Oil

I first heard about Red Palm Oil on Tuesday, when I was digging around for Angolan recipes. I am cooking with it this weekend so time to get educated!

Turns out there’s been a lot of hype about Red Palm Oil in the natural foods/health food world.

With good reason.

Red Palm Oil …

– is popular in parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America
– has been consumed for thousands of years
– has a high smoke point (437F)
– is red because its high in beta carotene and lycopene.
– is a rich source of vitamin A (15 times more than carrots and 300 times more than tomatoes)
– is an extremely high antioxidant
– has been shown to help prevent cancer as well as slow tumor growth
– great for lowering cholesterol and seems to reduce the formation of blood clots
– is finding its way into many commercial foods as producers struggle to replace unwanted hydrogenated oils

This last bullet point cracks me up. Leave it to modern man to dig himself into a hole by making unhealthy manufactured commercial products that slowly kill us, only to be “saved” by an oil that’s been around for centuries.

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13 Comments

I first came across palm oil years ago while making my way across the Congo. Everything was cooked with it. EVERYTHING!! I hated the taste but now I love it because it brings back memories. Back then everyone said it was the unhealthiest oil possible because it is so high in saturated fat. But I still ate it.

There is a uk internet site I came across. It is called ‘Safe from Scams’. I think it is a well-designed and interesting site and has many categories of scams going on including and relating to ‘organic-foods’ http://www.safefromscams.co.uk/OrganicFoodScam.html

I think it is a worthwhile site to read. It tells of the scams, how the scams work and what we can do to help keep ourselves protected and safe from these scammers and even gives the reader at the end of each article an easy way to give feedback or suggestions regarding how to improve their articles.

My personal philosophy with food is: a bit of this and a bit of that for trying to give body the vitamins it needs to function properly as well as for some enjoyment. I also believe that ‘stress’ is a big factor in this country that causes illnesses. Some countries the people live a more stress-free life. I also believe that our bodies are designed to be able to fight-off and heal and even adjust… but it is the stress-factor that sometimes can get in the way.

I found red palm oil had a very strong perfume. I cooked chicken with it, using a quarter of what was called for in my recipe, and it was still an assertive flavor. The dish was delicious, but foreign and something that I’m sure is an acquired taste.

While I certainly applaud your commitment to authenticity and health, you may want to consider alternatives to palm oil. A quick search for “palm oil sustainability” or “palm oil deforestation” gives many examples of how this oil’s production causes an exceptional amount of damage to some pretty valuable ecosystems. It’s obviously up to your best judgement to judge the evidence and weigh the environmental risks for yourself, but I’ll personally be using oil colored with annato as a substitute in cooking and checking labels for this product until there are reliably sustainable sources.